Talk about reinventing government.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chairman was Ricki Rhodarmer Tigert when she took the agency's helm last October.
In January, she dropped her maiden name of Rhodarmer and became Ricki Tigert Helfer when she married banking lawyer Michael Helfer.
But last week, Tigert - her first husband's name - got the boot. Her testimony before House Banking's financial institutions subcommittee was labeled simply: Ricki Helfer.
Call it downsizing.
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House Banking's financial institutions subcommittee zeroed in on how to fix the undercapitalized Savings Association Insurance Fund last week. Ms. Helfer testified that the thrift industry alone cannot come up with the $6.7 billion that SAIF needs.
Thrift executives agreed, arguing that the banking industry or the government ought to cough up some money.
However, after the hearing the industry's case wasn't helped when one of its witnesses - Great Western's chairman Jim Montgomery - was picked up by a limousine.
American Bankers Association president Howard McMillan caught a D.C. cab to the airport.
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Sometimes life gets a bit too complicated.
National Community Reinvestment Coalition president John Taylor relearned this lesson firsthand at the Fed's Consumer Advisory Committee meeting when he came rushing into the meeting without his sport coat.
He apologized to his colleagues for the fashion faux pas, saying he feared that in his haste to get to the meeting, he left the jacket on the sidewalk outside his home.
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The Conference of Bank Supervisors hired Stephen R. McSpadden as vice president of legislative services and general counsel.
Mr. McSpadden was senior counsel to the House Government Operations subcommittee on commerce, consumer, and monetary affairs where he drafted the civil and criminal enforcement provisions of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989.
Mr. McSpadden succeeds Doyle Bartlett, who joined the House Banking Committee as senior counsel earlier this year.
The Office of Thrift Supervision soon plans to name two new, key staffers.
Starting April 2, Dwight Smith will be the OTS's deputy chief counsel for business transactions and G. Jeffrey Miner will be the deputy chief counsel for regulations and legislation.
Mr. Smith replaces V. Gerard Comizio, who left OTS to join the Thacher, Proffitt & Wood law firm here in January. Mr. Miner replaces Karen Solomon, who became a special counsel at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency this year.
